All posts filed under: multipolar world

by Eric Draitser, via Mintpressnews The U.S.-NATO Empire, with its centers of power in Washington, on Wall Street, and in the city of London, is on the offensive against the BRICS countries. This assault takes many forms, each tailored to its specific target. The ongoing soft coup in Brazil has recently entered a new stage with the impeachment of President Dilma Rousseff of the left-wing Workers’ Party. Simultaneously, the destabilization of the ANC-led government in South Africa continues as political forces align to remove President Jacob Zuma. These two situations illustrate clearly the very potent forms of subversion via Western-funded political formations and movements being employed against Brazil, Russia, India, China and South Africa, the bloc of emerging economies also known as BRICS. However, when it comes to a country as large as Russia, with its vast military capabilities, consolidated and wildly popular political leadership, and growing antagonism toward the West, the tools available to the Empire to undermine and destabilize are in some ways more limited. Indeed, in the context of Russia, the popular …

by Eric Draitser, via MintPressNews Major protests have gripped South Africa in recent months as political forces have emerged to give voice to a growing discontent with the government and ruling party. Beneath the surface of these demonstrations organized around legitimate grievances, however, there’s an undercurrent of political manipulation. South Africa and its ruling African National Congress (ANC) party have been targeted for destabilization due to the country’s burgeoning relationship with China and other non-Western nations, most obviously typified by South Africa’s inclusion in BRICS, the association of the five major emerging economies of Brazil, Russia, India, China and South Africa. Last year, for example, China surpassed the United States and European Union as South Africa’s largest trade partner, and the ANC has been hard at work promoting further trade cooperation. Answering questions in the National Assembly, Deputy President Cyril Ramaphosa explained: “We trade more effectively with China because the relationship is based on win-win; mutual benefit that they can get out of the relationship and that we can get out the relationship.” But recent …

by Andre Vltchek Enough weeping! Latin America has wept incessantly, continuously, for years, decades and centuries. Its people robbed of everything since the days of Columbus, since Potosi. Tens of millions, perhaps hundreds of millions have been slaughtered here, in the last five centuries; first by the conquerors, then by their descendants and serfs, and finally by the Empire of Lies as well as the treasonous local ‘elites’. Enough weeping! It is time to use force. Whenever people stood up, whenever true Latin American heroes liberated their lands, by reason or by force, the bloodbath was administered almost immediately, from across the seas, or from the North. Tanks rolled through the avenues and squares, and combat airplanes and helicopters sprayed bombs and bullets all over Presidential palaces, as well as the countryside. People were hunted down like animals, dragged to stadiums and factories, to underground cellars, and there they were violated, tortured and slaughtered. That’s their democracy! Thank you, but no more of that. Why did all those horrors take place? Because there was always …

by Eric Draitser, MintpressNews Despite all the fancy anti-corruption rhetoric, the assault on President Rousseff’s leftist government is the result of a coordinated campaign by business interests tied to Washington and Wall Street. The last decade has seen a remarkable coalescing of non-Western nations in both economic and political partnerships. These multilateral institutions have been championed as alternatives to Western organs of political and economic power such as NATO, the International Monetary Fund, and the World Bank. From the growth of the Shanghai Cooperation Organization to the establishment of the Eurasian Economic Union, China’s “One Belt, One Road” strategy to link much of the Eurasian landmass via trade and investment, and most recently the establishment of the Asian Infrastructure Investment Bank, many have viewed these developments as essential for the decentralization of global power away from the imperial centers of Washington, Wall Street, London and Brussels. But perhaps none of the emerging Global South international groupings has been more promising in terms of both public relations and real economic partnership than that of the BRICS …

Russian fighter jets fly over Moscow. Photo Alexander Vilf/Sputnik John Helmer, “the longest continuously serving foreign correspondent in Russia”, writes from Moscow in his blog Dances with Bears: It was a marching song in 1915: “What’s the use of worrying? It never was worthwhile, so Pack up your troubles in your old kit-bag, And smile, smile, smile.” Three more years of war in Europe obliterated the smiles, and also the song. Under pressure from the US campaigns on the Ukraine and Syrian fronts, in the propaganda media, and on the international capital markets, the Russian home front is marching with dwindling income and growing fear. There is no smiling. But the political impact is stable support for President Vladimir Putin; growing support for ministers regarded as fighting effectively against the foreign enemy; and weakening support for ministers seen to be pro-American, like Prime Minister Dmitry Medvedev. If you invest in the Russian grocery basket, this tune will grow on you. […] Russian military victory on the Syrian front, the collapse of the US regime in …

by Andrew Korybko (USA), Oriental Review The grand objective behind every Hybrid War is to disrupt multipolar transnational connective projects through externally provoked identity conflicts (ethnic, religious, regional, political, etc.) within a targeted transit state. Russia’s Eurasian integration objectives and China’s Silk Road projects are the targets of the USA’s global Hybrid War strategy, and this accordingly opens up a wide range of geographic battlefields. Andrew examines the Greater Heartland, the Balkans, ASEAN, transoceanic Africa, and Latin America in identifying the vulnerabilities that each of the relevant transit states has to this revolutionary type of asymmetrical warfare. His unique methodology incorporates the variables of ethnicity, religion, history, administrative boundaries, physical geography, and socio-economic disparity in crafting comprehensive analyses that demonstrate each country’s Hybrid War weaknesses. The objective of the work is to illustrate the means that the US could predictably employ in destabilizing these targeted states, thereby giving decision makers and the public advance notice so that they can be better prepared to deal with certain preplanned scenarios as they arise. The Law Of Hybrid …

by Justin Yifu Lin China’s principal global project is about more than short-term gain. Throughout 2015, a major focus of the international community has been China’s economic slowdown and the potential impact on the world economy. To boost the economy, the Chinese government has launched various initiatives in the past few years, the most important ones being the Silk Road Economic Belt and the Maritime Silk Road (Belt and Road). Aimed at promoting regional integration between China and other Asian, African and European countries covered by the initiative through improving infrastructure including ports, roads, railways and oil and gas pipelines, China’s One Belt, One Road initiative will enhance economic development in China and the other One Belt, One Road countries. With a vision to establish an “international community with shared interests, destiny and responsibility,” the One Belt, One Road initiative is also a Chinese effort to assume more international responsibility. China is now beyond doubt the world’s leader in terms of infrastructure building. Its economic development in the past three decades has been partly driven …

by Otto Kolbl, reposted from Rainbowbuilders In December 2014, Zhang Weiwei took part in the Head to Head program on Al Jazeera. He certainly did his best to explain the recent development of China. However, there is in particular one fundamental question on which he could not come up with any convincing answer. This underperformance is not the result of his personal incompetence; it shows the failure of the whole Chinese academic system to come up with solid and credible information in a field which is crucial for understanding the development of China and all other developing countries: The question asked by Mehdi Hasan, the presenter of Head to Head, to Zhang Weiwei is fundamental: How can we justify a policy promoting economic growth if it is obvious that this policy will come at the cost of human lives? Zhang Weiwei’s answer is the perfect disaster for mutual understanding between the Western countries and China; he said “The cost is there, but still, it is manageable, as with the rise of other powers, but we …

by Xiangming Chen and Julia Mardeusz China and Europe have been closely linked since the Opium Wars, but the relative economic positions and power have reversed. Nothing illustrates this more symbolically than a stroll along the Bund in Shanghai: the low rise and old European-style buildings on the West side of the Huangpu River are dwarfed and eclipsed by the sparkling skyscrapers in Pudong on the east bank. The built environment of Shanghai, with its historic European-style buildings and modern China-built skyscrapers, is a physical manifestation of the reconfigured dynamic between China and Europe. Since 2013, China’s connections with Europe have expanded since developing its official policy of building a westward economic corridor — a new Silk Road — along its ancient route. Most recently, in December 2014, China agreed with Hungary, Serbia, and Macedonia to build a rail link between Budapest and Belgrade, which will be financed by Chinese companies and completed by 2017. This rail line will then be connected to the Macedonian capital of Skopje and the Greek port city of Piraeus …

Translated from German by Tom Winter, for FortRuss January 7, 2015, Deutsche Wirtschafts Nachrichten Reposted here January 9, 2016 Russia has presented a surprising proposal for overcoming tensions with the EU, namely that the EU should renounce the TTIP free trade agreement with the United States and instead enter into a partnership with the newly created Eurasian Economic Union. A free trade zone with your neighbors would make more sense than a deal with the U.S. Vladimir Chizhov, Russian Ambassador to the EU, surprised with a new proposal: renewal of the partnership between the EU and Russia. Chizhov suggests that the EU stop negotiating with the U.S. on the controversial TTIP free trade agreement, and opt instead to begin negotiations toward entering the Eurasian Economic Union, which came into force January 1. Chizhov said to the EU Observer: “You really think it is wise to put so much political energy into a free trade agreement with the United States when one has a much more natural trade partner next door right in the neighborhood? At …

by Mark Taliano One of the unstated goals of imperial warfare is to make hapless civilians pay a price for having the temerity to be born in a targeted nation. Prior to the illegal invasion of Iraq, for example, the Western oligarchies imposed sanctions which destroyed water treatment infrastructures and killed about 700,000 children, and about 1 million other innocent Iraqis. These consequences were all planned and projected. There was nothing accidental about the mass killings. It was simply imperial punishment for living in Iraq. Part of the calculus for such barbarity is that Imperialists hope that such punishments will demoralize local populations, and possibly make them reject their leaders. It falls under the euphemistic categories of “destabilization” and “collateral damage”. More accurately, it is targeted mass murder. Why did the Western oligarchies choose to destroy Iraq and its people? It had nothing to do with Weapons of Mass Destruction, or terrorism, or any other of the creative lies perpetrated by cooked intelligence reports and public relations agencies. More accurately, CIA asset Saddam Hussein had …

by Eric Zuesse For the first time today (December 15th), the United States has publicly and officially accepted the position that Russian President Vladimir Putin and U.N. Secretary General Ban Ki-Moon have consistently held on the Syrian situation: that only a free and fair internationally monitored and accepted election of Syria’s President by the people of Syria can legitimately determine whom the President of Syria ought to be, and that no Syrian citizen, not even the current Syrian President Bashar al-Assad if he decides to be a candidate, can be blocked by any foreign power from being a candidate in that election. The way America’s AP (Associated Press) put this in their news-report on Tuesday December 15th, was: “U.S. Secretary of State John Kerry on Tuesday accepted Russia’s long-standing demand that President Bashar Assad’s future be determined by his own people.” The way that Ban ki-Moon, or Mr. Ban, had expressed this “demand” is: “I believe that the future of Syria, or the future of the peace talks, … should not be held up by an issue of the future of one man. I believe …

Eric Draitser of Stop Imperialism appears on CPR News (Dec. 15, 2015) to discuss the latest talks between US Secretary of State John Kerry and Russian Foreign Minister Lavrov and President Putin. Draitser explains that there is some overlap in terms of interests, but that sharp divides persist, especially on the issue of Assad’s status and the nature of the opposition to be included in the political process. He also discusses the latest SCO summit and what the development of the SCO means for the development of China and the Eurasian landmass generally.

by Eric Zuesse An official announcement from the world’s leading, and most fundamentalistic, Sunni Islamic nation, Saudi Arabia, on Tuesday December 15th, has introduced a Sunni-Islamic counterpart to NATO, and it includes one NATO member, Turkey, which is already at war against NATO’s enemy Russia, and against Russia’s ally the non-sectarian, secular Shiite, Bashar al-Assad, who runs Syria. The Sauds’ “Joint Statement on Formation of Islamic Military Alliance” has been signed by 34 Sunni-led nations, with “more than ten other Islamic countries” that “have expressed their support for this … alliance and will take the necessary measures” to join, “including Indonesia” (the highest-population Islamic-majority nation). All of those “Islamic countries” are specifically Sunni-led, not Shiite-led. The two top importers of U.S. weapons are #1 Saudi Arabia, and #2 Turkey. Both are Sunni, and no Shiite nation is even on the list. The new, 34-nation-plus military alliance could cause U.S. military producers to soar. And the figures shown there for Saudi Arabia grossly understate the reality. For example, on 13 September 2010, Britain’s Telegraph bannered “US …

Remarks by Stephen F. Cohen Professor Emeritus Princeton University and New York University At San Francisco Commonwealth Club, November 18, 2015 Some of you may know that the small group of us who have been protesting against the American policy since the Ukraine crisis began two years ago have been described in harsh and derogatory language as “Putin’s apologists, Putin’s useful idiots and Putin’s best friends in America.” Paris should have changed everything but for these people it hasn’t. I clicked on the Internet this morning and there it was again. So let me begin with a word about myself. My answer to these charges is that, “No, I …. not you, am a patriot of American national security,” And I actually have been since I started studying Russia about 50 years ago. I started out in Kentucky and then went to Indiana University, and old friends here today can testify that I was doing this many years ago. Along the way I came to a conviction, exactly how and why doesn’t matter that American …

Hollande’s dilemma: Join Russia or remain a Neocon poodle Ajay Goyal writes for Sputnik International: When François Hollande arrives in Moscow [on November 26] to meet President Vladimir Putin, France will be 15 years late joining Russia against Islamic terrorists. Russia has been at this war not just since the start of the military campaign in Syria against ISIL/ISIS/Daesh, but for nearly two decades. There is no doubt that President Putin will provide all the help the French are humble enough to seek in destroying ISIL’s infrastructure in Syria and Iraq, but he is not going to indulge Hollande. The French president may yet be all bluster and bluff, directed at domestic public opinion, but Putin will not have any patience for theatrics. Hollande will need to bring substance and gravitas if he wants to create a meaningful and effective alliance against ISIL, he will need to make a genuine overture toward Russia, showing that he means business to earn its trust. Unless he makes a fundamental shift in French policy toward Russia and against …

by Eric Zuesse A meeting between Russia’s Vladimir Putin and Saudi Arabia’s Defence Minister Prince Mohammed bin Salman (son of King Salman) ended on early Monday, October 12th. Agence France-Presse headlined “Vladimir Putin Meets Saudi Prince on ‘Political Solution’ in Syria,” and reported that, whereas the son of the Sunni fundamentalist Saudi King says that his father still insists on removing the Shiite secularist leader Bashar al-Assad from power in Syria and on ending Syria’s alliance with Shiite Iran, Prince Salman said that the Saudi King is “in favour of a political solution in Syria.” Russia’s Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov was more forward in his statement about the meeting. He said: “The two parties confirmed that Saudi Arabia and Russia have similar objectives when it comes to Syria. Above all, it is to not let a terrorist caliphate take over the country.” Nothing was quoted from the Saudi side about any such opposition to ‘a terrorist caliphate,’ however; the Sauds have been the chief financial backers of Islamic jihad. (And here is what their followers …

Russian: English: Transcript: Mr. Secretary General, distinguished heads of state and government, Ladies and gentlemen, The 70th anniversary of the United Nations is a good occasion to both take stock of history and talk about our common future. In 1945, the countries that defeated Nazism joined their efforts to lay a solid foundation for the postwar world order. Let me remind you that key decisions on the principles defining interaction between states, as well as the decision to establish the UN, were made in our country, at the Yalta Conference of the leaders of the anti-Hitler coalition. The Yalta system was truly born in travail. It was born at the cost of tens of millions of lives and two world wars that swept through the planet in the 20th century. Let’s be fair: it helped humankind pass through turbulent, and at times dramatic, events of the last seven decades. It saved the world from large-scale upheavals. The United Nations is unique in terms of legitimacy, representation and universality. True, the UN has been criticized lately …

by Eric Zuesse According to GlobalSecurity.org, Russia has 202 Air Force bases, all in Russia’s various “Military Districts”; but now there is to be a 203rd one, and it will be in Belarus. If this actually happens, it will be a historic expansion of Russia’s armed forces abroad — something that for the U.S. to do would be inconsequential since the U.S. already has 41 Air Force Bases in foreign countries, surrounding Russia, East West and South. (Belarus isn’t even anywhere near the U.S.; it’s instead bordering Russia itself.) On September 19th at 112.international (and then on 20 September at the subscription-only Financial Times), was reported (as headlined at 112), “Russia to Establish Air Base in Belarus.” Russia’s President Vladimir Putin on Friday the 18th had signed a document, “To intrust the Ministry of Defense with the participation of the Ministry of Foreign Affairs to carry out the negotiations with the Belarusian side and upon coming to an accommodation, to sign the agreement on behalf of Russian Federation.” The anti-Russian Financial Times pretends that this is part of Russia’s aggression encircling NATO, instead of a response …

By Sequoyah De Souza Vigneswaren Progressive change is about more than just one man; it requires the strength of a collective mass movement. But Jeremy Corbyn’s success could represent a victory for principle, democracy and humanity. “The hope of change and bringing big ideas in is now back at the centre of politics: ending austerity, tackling inequality, working for peace and social justice at home and abroad.” It is the 21st century, and although it seems impossible to believe, those are the words of the leader of the Official Opposition in Britain. A self-proclaimed democratic socialist, whose first act as leader was to attend a rally in support of refugees. It has been an astonishing few months. Despite a frenetically hostile response from the establishment and corporate media, we have seen a relatively unknown activist M.P propelled into the position of Labour leader, on the back of a wave of popular support. It is testament to both the campaign and people’s passion, that in the age of consumerist, celebrity-obsessed, money-orientated individualism, there were people who …

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